


No More

by dreamoverdrive



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4441376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamoverdrive/pseuds/dreamoverdrive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko struggles with the new burden of leadership. He and Katara finally speak about what they are and what they can become in their new roles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No More

She found him hunched over in his study, shoulders shaking and head laid on a thick stack of yellow parchment. She let herself through the heavy door quietly, shutting it with a soft click behind her.

He didn’t move.

Panic started to take root in her stomach as she strode forward to his cluttered desk. “Zuko,” she called in a hushed voice. “Zuko, answer me.”

She drew up in front of the desk and reached over it to lay a light hand on his back. He trembled beneath her fingers and she bit her lip, moving around the desk so that she could kneel beside his chair. “Zuko, I’m right here.”

At that he stilled, and a moment later he let out a long, harsh breath. “Katara, I can’t do this.”

Her hand drifted to his head and she tugged the heavy golden crown out of his carefully done topknot. She laid it beside him on his desk with a soft thud and started to comb his hair loose with gentle fingers. “What are you talking about, Zuko? What’s the problem?”

His head lifted slowly from the desk and turned to face her. His eyes were webbed with red, as if he had been scrubbing at them for several hours to stay awake. The mottled and dull red of his scar made a stark contrast against the white of his face. She traced a finger along the edge of his scar, her eyes never leaving his.

“Zuko, speak to me,” she whispered.

He shook his head and turned away. “This is too much, Katara,” he croaked. “I can’t keep up anymore. So much needs to be done and so many amends need to be made. I can’t believe all of what they— _we_ — did.”

“Zuko—“

He shook his head and she fell silent. “I wasn’t meant for this.” He pressed his lips together and his eyes lifted to the blank space on the wall where his father’s portrait had hung. “I was never meant to be a leader.” He let out a sharp laugh. “Maybe Azula would have done a better job than me at getting us out of this pit. She had horrible, horrible plans, but she at least would have known how to revive the Fire Nation.”

“Zuko,” Katara said, shocked by what he was saying. “Are you telling me, in all honesty, that you think Azula would have given a single thought to helping her people? That she would have left the path your father took that had beggared them in the first place? You think there would be a modicum of peace in any civilization that wasn’t flying a red emblem?”

Zuko turned to her, shame and frustration playing across his face. “Of course, not. I just—“ He jerked away from her hand and clasped his head. “I just can’t think. I want to do what’s best, but I don’t know what’s best anymore. How can I make it up to my people, Katara—“ He stared at her, a haunted look entering his tired eyes. “How am I supposed to make this up to the _world_?”

She took a deep breath and reached out to pull his hands down from where they pressed angrily at his temples. “No one expects you to do this all at once.” She held his hands in hers, resting her thumbs over his wrists. “What people expect from you, Zuko, is to try to make things right. Some people may demand more than what you can give, but that doesn’t mean you can give up. Do you regret keeping the throne away from Azula?”

His eyes bored into hers. “Not one bit,” he finally said.

She smiled. “I’m glad you’re coming to your senses.” She reached out and stroked the line of his jaw. “I’m right here for you, Zuko,” she said softly. “The same way I was that day.”

He reached up and laid his hand over hers, pressing it to his cheek as his gaze grew heavier. “Katara, there are many things I regret, but until the day I die, I will never, ever regret jumping in front of Azula’s lightning for you.”

Katara felt the corners of her eyes start to prickle and she tried her best to force it away with a weak smile. The sudden turn the conversation had taken unnerved her, and she wasn’t prepared for this talk now. At least, not yet. “I’m still furious with you about that. I thought you were dead, Zuko.”

His hand tightened over hers. “I never would have left you.”

Her pulse jumped in her neck and she swallowed heavily. Suddenly his cheek was very warm underneath her hand and the gold in his eyes was growing brighter, intenser, and closer—

She forced herself to pull away, shivering as she did so. It was surprisingly difficult to force her gaze away from him and down to her slippers. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t have left your people either.”

She risked a look up at him from the embroidered carpet and saw that he was blinking as if he’d come out of a trance. “No,” he said slowly, leaning back into his chair. “Of course not.”

She pulled herself to her feet with the sturdy edge of his desk and forced a smile. “That’s how it should be,” she said, voice crackling in her throat and rumors of him thinking about starting another relationship with Mai flicking through her head.

He stared up at her in silence for several moments. His eyes shifted from confusion, to understanding, to regret. Finally, he said, “If that’s the way you believe it should be.”

Her stomach curled painfully and she nodded. The need to leave rose up in her chest. She couldn’t stand here staring into his face that was growing hollower by the instant, not when she ached so badly to say what needed to remain unsaid. She turned to leave as her throat burned with restrained words. The train of her night gown swept over the carpet and she almost didn't hear his soft sigh when she laid her hand on the door. She found she was incapable of turning the handle.

“Zuko,” she started in a strained voice. “Have you ever thought of telling someone else any of this?”

There was a long silence as she waited for his answer. She pressed her lips together tightly and leaned her forehead against the cold wood as she tried to maintain her upright posture. Seconds ticked by as she waited

and waited

and waited.

“Not once,” came his quiet reply. “I would tell Uncle if he wasn’t on his diplomacy voyages, but if you’re asking if I would tell someone else here, the answer is no.” The prickling in her eyes came back and Katara turned to face him. He wore a tired and resigned look as he gazed at her. “If you don’t want me to speak to you this intimately again—“

“No,” she said quickly. “That’s not what I’m saying at all, Zuko. I want to help you through this all as much as I can. I’m just…”

He waited for her to speak, but the more she tried to voice the words, the tighter they lodged themselves in her throat. Finally, he seemed to see it in her face.

“Katara,” he said softly. “What are you scared of?”

“This,” she said just as quietly. “I’m scared this will turn into nothing and that you’ll be pushed into some reconciliation marriage in a few years, or some aristocratic match that will please all your advisors—“

“Katara.”

She stopped her rapid speaking and took in a heavy breath. “I’m scared of my own feelings, and I’m even more scared of losing you.”

He stared at her, his eyes wide and unblinking. The prickling in her eyes finally gave way to a tear streaking down her cheek and she swiped it away furiously. She wasn’t going to cry in front of him, not after all she had just said, and she wasn’t going to embarrass herself any further—

“Katara, I thought you had decided to ignore the fact that I’m in love with you.”

She blinked.

“What?”

He stood from his desk. “Katara, I jumped in front of lightning for you! I risked the entire well-being of my country and a civil war for a new bloodline, all because the idea of you dying terrifies me out of my mind.” He shook his head in amazement, leaning on his desk for support as he watched her with a wondering look in his eyes. “I thought you were furious with me about it and that it was the final mistake—“

“Zuko,” she said, a few laughs bubbling out of her throat in hysteria. “You terrified _me_ out of my mind. You don’t know what it was like getting chased around by Azula when for all I knew, you could have been lying out there dead because of me.” She swiped impatiently at her eyes as he made his way across the room. “I care about you so much. And it absolutely terrifies me.”

He stopped in front of her, the sudden rush to reach her coming to a halt. He stared wordlessly, hope bright in his eyes, asking her what was ok, asking her what she was comfortable with.

She laughed, a warm rush of relief moving through her body. She reached out to him and pulled him close. His lips found hers and then they were tangling their fingers in each other’s hair and smiling into each other’s mouths and Katara just felt so _warm_.

Finally, they pulled apart, foreheads still pressed together and arms still slung over each other’s necks.

“If I knew having a break down would result in this, I would have done it much sooner.”

Katara laughed at the playful gleam in his eyes, running her fingers back up into his hair. “And what does this mean, then?”

“I think it means we can stop being so scared all the time.”

She smiled and pulled him back into her. “No more regretting pushing you away,” she murmured against his lips.

“Agreed.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was the Rue prompt for Zutara Week and a nightmare to write.


End file.
